FanDuel is an online fantasy sports provider that specializes in daily games. It offers a number of welcome opportunities for new members, including a guaranteed first win.

Your First Win is on FanDuel!

When you sign up to FanDuel, your first win is on them, and you can actually win a few times. How it works is that they give you vouchers that cover the cost of entering a contest. The vouchers will depend on the time of year. Currently, all new customers will automatically receive a free voucher to the NFL Play Free Til you Win Contest. This voucher is awarded immediately, and does not require a deposit! You receive this FanDuel no deposit bonus as soon as you validate your account.

Vouchers do have an expiration date, so be sure to use them. If they expire, you simply lose the opportunity. If you play a voucher and don’t win, you’ll receive another for the same sport on the next weekday. You’ll keep receiving these vouchers until you eventually win. Once you’ve won, you can continue to use any vouchers you have, but you won’t get replacements when you lose. Any money you win is yours to keep as well, and you don’t even have to make a deposit to make a withdrawal!

FanDuel Promo Deposit Bonus

If you do opt to deposit cash and not limit yourself to just the free games, FanDuel will reward you. The minimum deposit at FanDuel is just $5, so you don’t have to commit much. And when you make a deposit of at least $5, FanDuel will reward you with a $20 bonus! This is a 400% deposit bonus!

Note that bonuses are not actually paid in cash but FanDuel Points or FDP. We’ll cover those more in the Wagering Requirements section.

Also, you do not need to enter any FanDuel promo code to receive this bonus. You may leave the PROMOCODE field blank when registering your new account.

FanDuel Deposit Bonus Promotion Amounts

Deposit Amount

FanDuel Promo Bonus

Bonus %

$5+

$20 (48,000 FDP)

400%

$100 - $249

$30 (72,000 FDP)

30%

$250+

$100 (240,000 FDP)

40%

Free Contest Entries

New depositors usually receive at least one and often two free contest entries. We use the term usually since these contests are highly seasonal and can differ greatly from one week to the next. At the time of this writing, new depositors were getting an entry into a $10K freeroll as well as a free entry into the Sunday Million event. Whatever the freerolls are when you make your first deposit, know that they’ll be automatically applied to your account as long as you deposit at least $10.

Beginner Contests

As a new member, you’ll also have access to beginner contests. Beginners are anyone who’ve participated in less than 50 events and haven’t earned enough to be qualified as an experienced or highly experienced player: $2,500 across six or more contests or $1,000 across four or more contests, respectively. Once you graduate to intermediate, you’ll have access to intermediate contests until your 500th event or until you rack up your fourth $1,000 or greater win.

How to Register and Claim the Welcome Bonuses

You do not need any FanDuel promo code to cash in on these FanDuel promotions. There is no required promo code, and all the FanDuel promo codes deliver the same welcome bonus.

To register an account, click here to visit the FanDuel website and click on the white Join button in the upper right-hand corner. Enter your full name and email address. Pick a screen name, which is the handle that other players will see. Choose a password. Click the green Play Now button, which indicates that you’re at least 18 or 21 years old depending on the state you live in.

You’ll receive an email that invites you to verify your account by clicking on a link. Once you do that, you’re all done. Your free plays for the guaranteed first win will be in the voucher section of your user control panel on the site. You’ll also be free to make a deposit, which will require setting up a payment option. You only have to deposit $5, but remember that any free contests likely require at least $10.

Deposit Requirements and Eligible Payment Methods

Before you can cash out or make a deposit, you’ll need to verify your identity. This is required by all 50 states, and the verification process is completed online. You’ll need to provide a home address in addition to the information given earlier, and it can take 12 to 24 hours to get approved.

Note that some states don’t permit deposits to FanDuel but allow cashing out. These include Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Texas and Washington. Some states impose deposit limits, so you’ll be limited to $1,000 a month if you live in Maryland or Massachusetts and $2,500 a month if you live in Tennessee.

Depositing into FanDuel

FanDuel accepts payments via PayPal as well as credit cards and debit cards from Visa, MasterCard and Discover. If you use American Express, for instance, you’ll need to process it through PayPal. There are also FanDuel gift cards that you can use to fund your account. You can purchase digital gift cards online, and there are physical cards that may be available at local retailers.

Playing Requirements for the Welcome Bonus

FDP are equal to dollars at a rate of 2,400 to one. If you deposited $100 and claimed a $30 bonus, you’ll receive 72,000 FDP. You receive this amount and have access to it immediately. Bonus FDP do have an expiration date, which is at least 30 days but can often be longer. If you don’t use your bonus FDP in that time, you lose them. Nearly all paid contests have an enter using FDP option if you enough FDP to cover the buy-in, so you shouldn’t have any problem spending even $100 worth of FDP in a month. Note that regular FDP earned through buy-ins doesn’t expire unless your account goes inactive for a year. Also, while regular FDP does count toward your Players Club status, bonus FDP do not.

You can check your FDP balance by visiting your account.

FDP Balance

You redeem your FDP by entering a real money contest and selecting the option to pay with your FDP balance.

Redeeming FDP to Enter a Contest

How FanDuel Works

FanDuel is a fantasy sports provider. New leagues and tournaments are available on a daily basis. Most contests conclude in one 24-hour period. Most contests require a cash buy-in, which is not refundable. That cash buy-in is added to a pool, minus FanDuel’s take, which is used to pay the winners. FanDuel offers a number of different contest formats.

Introduction to FanDuel

Perhaps the two most popular formats are Head-to-Head, which pits one owner against another, and 50/50s, which distributes the prize pool to the top half of the field. Tournaments tend to take place over a longer period than one day, and FanDuel offers qualifiers and satellites that can help players avoid the high buy-in of the most lucrative tournaments.

How to Play Fantasy Football on FanDuel

In a fantasy football contest on FanDuel, participants are given a fixed salary cap of $60,000 and are required to fill a nine-player roster: one defense and special teams unit (DST), a tight end (TE), three wide receivers (WR), two running backs (RB) a quarterback (QB), and a kicker (K).

Drafting a Team at FanDuel

FanDuel Fantasy Football Intro

Players must field a full team and have at least one football player from two different NFL teams. This means that you have about $6,667 per spot to spend, but the stars of the league usually have salaries in excess of $10K. Since players tend to pay a lot for running backs, including in the flex position, which can be a RB, WR or TE, the key to success is identifying bargains at other positions.

FanDuel Fantasy Football Scoring

The scoring system is points-based, and players earn and lose points for a wide range of activities, including yardage gained and interceptions. The big scoring actions are rushing TDs, rushing yards, passing TDs and passing yards. RBs tend to have great value in the system because a rushing TD is worth six points and a rushing yard is worth .1 points while a passing TD is only worth four and a passing yard is only worth .04. At the end of the day, such as Sunday, or the end of the league period, such as Thursday to Monday, points are tallied, and then participating teams are ranked based on total points scored.

How to Play Fantasy Baseball on FanDuel

In fantasy MLB contests, the goal is to assemble a valid roster of Major League Baseball players. Valid rosters include players from at least two different MLB teams and have nine players overall: a pitcher (P), a catcher (C), a first baseman (1B), a second baseman (2B), a shortstop (SS), a third baseman (3B) and three outfielders (OF). The standard salary cap is $35,000, which means that you have about $3,900 to spend per player, and players range from about $2K to as high as $10K.

Although accumulated statistics has long been a fantasy baseball tradition, point-based scoring is becoming more prevalent, and FanDuel uses this format. Therefore, you earn or lose points based on the actions of your players in a real-word game. A home run will earn you 10 points, a runner caught stealing will lose you two points, and a strikeout by a pitcher will earn you two. Points for the team are tallied, and your final position in the league is based on your total points.